9352760 Nations Digital imaging techniques are used to enhance students' experiences in both physics and astronomy. Non-science majors (including many education majors) in a year-long elementary astronomy sequence are using CCD cameras in observing and laboratory exercises. This a dds a much more quantitative component to the observation-oriented but largely descriptive astronomy laboratory course. Science majors in their first (and often only) physics course, both in the algebra and the calculus-based sequences, can get laboratory experience with CCDs and digital image processing. This is a technology they are quite likely to encounter in their future careers. Physics majors in upper-division courses in optics, experimental physics, and a required, research-oriented independent study courses will use the equipment as well. Research opportunities in both astronomy and physics increase dramatically in both spectroscopy and imaging applications. Laboratories which incorporate the CCDs are more streamlined, quantitative, and clear than previously. The systems are easily transported between physics laboratories, which are offered during the day, and astronomy laboratories, which are at night. ***
